


I Hold Your Hand in Mine

by altalemur



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Cannibalism, Gen, Horror, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 11:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8369713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altalemur/pseuds/altalemur
Summary: Yuui learned to survive however he could in the valley with no magic, no food, but lots of dead bodies.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily inspired by my favorite creepy song, “I hold your hand in mine” by Tom Lehrer.

Nothing in the valley changed. The bodies thrown into the valley never rotted, never smelled, never bloated with gas from decomposing, and never truly stiffened at the joints from rigor mortis. Instead, they were frozen at the moment of being thrown into the valley. Yuui had never seen a human body rot, but he knew that they eventually turned into dirt. When the snow and ice coated them, they were a bit hard to move, but there wasn’t any other change to the bodies.

After the initial horror of seeing an unnaturally still and fresh body, Yuui began moving them, stacking them against the wall he meant to climb. He could be practical with human bodies when he needed to be, and he needed to be if he was going to get himself and Fai out of the valley. He had to stop seeing those bodies as people. The only people in the valley were Yuui and Fai.

Nothing in the valley changed. Yuui’s body was like the corpses, since it couldn’t change like a living body could. Yuui was missing a tooth, one that had fallen out natural just before the twins were thrown into the valley. He often worried at the tip of the new tooth still stuck in his gums. The adult molar wouldn’t come in until he left. He wouldn’t ever grow taller until he left.

Yuui couldn’t die from starvation. If he could, he would have in the first week. Whatever magic was in the valley prevented his body from dying that easily. And yet he still suffered from hunger and thirst. He could swallow snow to ease the tightness in his throat, but that made his insides painfully cold. Then again, he couldn’t seem to die from cold either. The hunger, the thirst, and the cold made every day painful, and his steps slow with strained effort. 

Nothing in the valley changed, except Yuui’s health. His hands were getting thinner. His voice was getting weaker. His steps were slower. Every movement took more effort. But he had to get out of the valley. And to do that, he had to make piles of the dead bodies, and climb the wall. He might get hungry and grow thinner, but he wouldn’t change in any way other than that. Just like a dead body won’t grow or rot while it was here.

His teeth weren’t meant for biting raw chunks of flesh off of a body. But he made do with what he had. He bit into the cold meat carefully. He didn’t want to chip a tooth. Instead of vicious hunger, Yuui’s stomach was full of cold lumps of human meat and sin.

Nothing in the valley changed, except the things that could. Despite gnawing on the frozen meat of the corpses, the flesh of Yuui’s hands stayed thin. His hair grew almost as long as the thin robe covering his body, even though his body didn’t grow an inch. Yuui vaguely remembered the long, warm flow of his mother’s hair. His own long hair didn’t keep the cold out. The cold was already permanently inside Yuui’s body, like the snow and the frozen meat. Years must have passed by now.

***

Yuui’s first meal in Celes would seem simple in retrospect. But at the time, it was fairly overwhelming to the malnourished child. He threw up the porridge as soon as he’d eaten it. King Ashura had given him nothing but broth after that, until he could “stomach solid food again.” The king thought Fai had spent the entire time in the valley without any food or water. Fai didn’t correct him, since he was mostly right.

Yuui was out of the valley, but Fai’s body still hadn’t changed. His twin’s body was preserved very well with the magic of the feather and the cold water. 

Yuui’s hands and body were filling out with flesh. Underwater, when he placed his own hands over Fai’s, they were no longer identical. Yuui had practiced holding his breath, but it wasn’t enough. He learned a spell that let him stay underwater for hours. Now Yuui spent most of his free time by Fai’s pool or diving to the bottom.

Yuui was out of the valley, but he had brought more than Fai’s body out of it. The meals were filling, and yet had left Yuui’s body wanting. A small handful of years eating warm, flavorful food could not compare to the dozens of years Yuui had spent growing accustomed to cold, frozen human meat.

Yuui held his twin’s hand between his own. Fai’s hand was still the same, so well preserved. Except that Yuui loved him dearly, Fai’s body was the same as the others in the valley. Yuui held the thin hand against his cheek. Fai had never clawed his way up a stone wall. There were no ragged wounds, or healing scar tissue at the fingertips. The hand was cold, like Yuui was used to. Carefully, Yuui brought Fai’s fingertips to his mouth, and took a healthy bite.


End file.
